


Souvenir

by Island_of_Reil



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Closure, Corpses, Gen, Implied/Referenced Attempted Rape/Non-con, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 13:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10922514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: Csevet’s first thought is,I was right.





	Souvenir

He should go to bed. He has been awake for far too long, he knows, and Edrehasivar will need him fully alert the next day, even more so than on a normal day. But if he waits until the next day, the task will be even grimmer. And he cannot _not_ do it.

He pulls Captain Orthema aside and expresses his wish. The Guardsman’s brows go up, and his ears jerk as if he is setting them so they do not go back. “May we ask the reason for this request, Mer Aisava? There is naught to be discovered in that wise, as there were numerous witnesses to the attempt on His Serenity’s life. An there were, the Guard would consult with a Vigilant Brother who specializes in such matters.”

Pitch-black wit — acquired soon enough by any courier who is not a fool, ruthlessly suppressed unless the courier is among trusted peers and no one else — tempts Csevet to a vile rejoinder. _Have you not heard of the depravity of the courier fleet, Captain? We are fervently aroused by corpses, and we wish to fuck the remains before they grow too foul._

Instead he says neutrally, “There is something we wish to ascertain for ourselves, something His Serenity knows of.” It is not, after all, a complete lie. “We will not violate the precepts of Ulis in our handling of the body.”

Orthema hesitates still, but the furrow of his brow suggests he fears to deny the request. Csevet, after all, has the ear of the emperor.

At last the captain acquiesces. He leads Csevet through long hallways and down stairways to the offices of the Untheileneise Guard. They are below ground, though not so far below as the Nevennamire. Eyes flick in their direction. All the Guard must know what has happened by now, and they must wonder what the presence of the Imperial Secretary here signifies. Csevet, marshaling his remaining energy, does not look at them.

The journey ends in a back room, a chilly one even by the standards of Court, on which a sizable man-shape lies on a table under a plain white shroud. It is a remarkably utilitarian setting for that body in particular. It also, Csevet thinks, affords that body more dignity than its owner deserved. While it has not happened in over a century, precedent is that the bodies of slain traitors are hung upon the Court’s outer wall. Perhaps a prelate of Ulis must be called first? He has no idea what clerical protocol is for the would-be murderers of emperors.

“How long will you need?” Orthema asks.

“Five minutes.”

The captain nods, still eyeing Csevet with morbid curiosity, then exits and closes the door behind himself.

Csevet cannot say he feels nothing as he pulls back the upper end of the shroud, even though this is far from the first body he has seen. He was four years old when his mother lifted him up upon his grandfather’s bed to kiss the old man’s rapidly cooling cheek. Since then he has seen a fellow courier be thrown from a horse and break his neck, he has witnessed tavern brawls turned fatal, he has watched a friend’s blood drench her bedlinens after she tried to rid herself of a child.

What he feels now couldn’t be termed grief, however.

He has not seen the face below the shroud in ten years. At least, not at close quarters. After Eshoravee, he asked to never again be assigned messages involving the Tethimada, and to his surprise the request was granted. In his current post, he has made sure to make himself scarce whenever Eshevis Tethimar was likely to approach His Serenity.

Tethimar, dead, is as handsome as he was alive. More so, actually. His bloodless features are no longer tensed in rage or predation; his lips neither sneer nor snarl. Someone has closed his eyes, but they could not be emptier in death than they were in life. His white lashes rest upon his striking cheekbones as if in gentle repose.

_Hadst not seized me so, hadst asked me sweetly instead, I might have agreed._

Csevet notes that the fully slumped ears are bare of jewelry. Of course. Forfeit to the crown, down to the last bauble. He cannot imagine Edrehasivar or any of his kin wishing to wear those baubles, however. Perversely he hopes that some Guardsman or other has taken them for himself, and that they will soon lie in pawn in one of Cetho’s seedier districts.

Five minutes, he promised Orthema. He does not have time to stand here and indulge himself in these imaginings.

He pulls the shroud down slightly further, then undoes the top buttons of Tethimar’s velvet evening jacket. Under it is a silk shirt. Csevet undoes its buttons as well, then pushes the material of both garments back from the stiffened flesh beneath.

And there it is, just where collarbone and shoulder meet: two half-rings of tiny impressions, each almost but not quite square, their flesh silver and fibrous against the smooth white surface of death. Csevet recalls, quite against his will, the taste of stale linen as well as blood and drunkard’s sweat in his mouth, and he shudders and nearly retches. There is not even a touch of pink to the scars anymore. Of course, the blood by now would have pooled within the body where it rests upon the table. 

Csevet’s first thought is, _I was right._ His next, and final, thought is, _When art called from Ulis’s antechamber, I hope he asks thee how obtained’st these marks._

And it is finished.

With the efficiency of an edocharis he rebuttons the shirt, straightening its lines, and does the same for the jacket. He then restores the shroud, walks to the door, opens it, and calls out, “Captain Orthema. We are done, and we thank you for your forbearance.”


End file.
